Liberals scrap over animal-cruelty bills
JOAN BRYDEN February 26, 2007
Globe and Mail
OTTAWA -- Two Liberal colleagues are in a dogfight over two different bills aimed at cracking down on animal cruelty.

Senator John Bryden has authored a private member's bill that would dramatically stiffen penalties for those who abuse animals.

But MP Mark Holland is urging his Liberal colleagues to defeat Mr. Bryden's "placebo" bill, arguing that it's meaningless to impose stiffer fines and jail terms without simultaneously closing loopholes that allow animal abusers to escape conviction.

Indeed, Mr. Holland maintains Mr. Bryden's bill is a ruse designed to take the pressure off parliamentarians to produce more meaningful reform of Canada's outdated and inadequate animal-cruelty laws.

Mr. Holland is urging his colleagues to support his own, more ambitious private member's bill, instead. But Mr. Bryden has a leg up on Mr. Holland. His bill, S-213, has already been passed by the Senate; the House of Commons will begin debating it today. Mr. Bryden believes he has the support of the governing Conservatives and a majority of Liberal MPs.

Mr. Holland's bill, C-373, hasn't even entered the legislative obstacle course. It may not see the light of day until the fall or later.

Mr. Bryden acknowledges his bill is nowhere near as ambitious as Mr. Holland's. But he says that's deliberate, recognizing the fact that seven attempts to modernize animal-cruelty laws in the past 10 years failed because they were too ambitious.

Past bills proposed changing the status of animals and the definition of cruelty, raising concerns of farmers, aboriginals, hunters, anglers and researchers that all sorts of traditional practices could be rendered illegal.

Mr. Bryden said he decided to focus on the one element of previous bills that everyone could agree on: stiffer penalties.

Currently, animal-cruelty offences are punishable only on summary conviction with maximum penalties of a $2,000 fine and/or six months imprisonment. S-213 would allow prosecutors to proceed by way of indictment or summary conviction, depending on the seriousness of the case, with maximum penalties of five years imprisonment and/or a $10,000 fine.

Animal-rights groups have condemned Mr. Bryden's bill and are urging MPs to reject it in favour of Mr. Holland's. But Mr. Bryden, whose bill is backed by universities and hunting and angling groups, argues that it's better to have stiffer penalties than no reforms at all.

"The biggest thing that the animal-rights people are saying about my bill is that it doesn't go far enough. Well, the ones that tried to go farther didn't get very far."

Mr. Bryden argues that nothing prevents Parliament from bringing in comprehensive reforms. In the meantime, the deterrence effect of S-213 would give animals some additional protection.

Mr. Holland doesn't buy it.

"To try to hold out that this is animal-cruelty legislation when all of the major animal welfare groups oppose it is despicable," he said in an interview.

Mr. Holland's bill is identical to C-50, which was twice passed by the Commons but blocked by the Senate. It would move animal cruelty out of the property section of the Criminal Code, and extend protection to wildlife.